Fine Tuning
by cdfe88
Summary: In which former witchlighter, Chris Halliwell, faces his last moments before being recycled, but is suddenly presented with an opportunity.


"**Fine Tuning" by cdfe88**

_**Chapter 1: Feedback**_

"…we have more important stuff to deal with right now", said the voice in a grumpy bass tone, then continued switching to a pitchy mocking one "we have to deal with Gideon and Leo, you have to deal with the paradox guy, that's your job after all", then there was a sigh.

Chris Halliwell slowly opened his eyes, but was caught off guard by the sudden whiteness. Once his eyes readjusted he found himself in a place not unlike Up There, lying on a marble slab, next to a pacing blond man, wearing Elder robes. The Elder was oozing anxiety, but once he turned around, he let out a gasp after seeing the recently deceased sitting up.

The man remained quiet, staring at Chris. "What about Gideon?", said the latter. "Is Wyatt safe? What happened…" asked Chris, when suddenly Fridge Logic hit his mind, "…am I dead?" The Elder said nothing for a couple of minutes as he fidgeted with his fingers.

"Don't worry, Wyatt is safe. As for your current status, I don't know," he finally conceded. The Elder waited for an outburst from Chris, but the former witchlighter kept his cool. "It might be easier to explain starting from the beginning; I'm Felix, and I'm the new Elder in charge of the space-time continuity, and I have to apologize, because some of your misfortunes were because of me not being completely prepared."

"Eh?" asked Chris, burrowing his from.

"See, after the Titans attacked, the old Time Master was vanquished and I had to replace him before I finished my training. I thought I would be able to handle your case, but you proved to be special. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot about the mechanics of time travel and even created some safeguard protocols for future use. But you were a huge pain in my ass for this whole year."

"Yeah, about that…" began Chris, but Felix kept going

"First you opened a portal that did not require access from us, then someone from your future inverted its polarity, while keeping the concurrency of both time frames; that made it really hard to keep track of the fabric and it got severely jumbled. Then you came back with an updated set of memories, overloading the system; that's why you were having conception issues. Normally we try to avoid having future visitors vanish because that releases a lot of magical data."

After experiencing death by a magical stabbing and the cathartic explosion of reconciling with his father, Chris was surprised that his curiosity about time travel was stronger than other concerns at the time."I didn't know the time-space continuum worked as a computer"

"It does but it doesn't as well. I'm not going to go into details, I'll just say it can be linear, cyclical or even wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey, depending on who's seeing it. For me, it was easier to diagnostic all the disturbances you were making by interpreting the fabric as a network. Alas, I digress, I'm here talking technicalities and you're probably wondering what's going to happen to you."

"I would appreciate some information on that, yes"

"See, here's the thing, all the other Elders are busy figuring out what to do about Gideon, and they left it to me to decide. Normally you wouldn't witness all of this and you would seamlessly transition, but I haven't chosen yet.

I could have you vanish, as protocol dictates. But like I said, it tends to release a huge packet of magical data. Also, due to the way you traveled, said data is a bit corrupted, and with all this morality shifting happening recently, I can't risk adding more disturbances. I can't send you to the afterlife or revive you, because you'll keep a link between the present and your original time frame…for both this reality and yours, and you're also interacting with your newborn self." Felix gave another sigh.

"That means, the only option is to recycle me…" said Chris, solemnly.

"Yup, that's basically it" answered Felix.

"If there weren't any other options, why wouldn't you just recycle me without me being aware?" Chris watched the Elder fidget and pace, looking upwards and sticking part of his tongue out of his mouth. After swaying across the white room for a while, Felix sat down next to Chris.

"To be honest," said Felix, trying to stifle a yawn, "I am intrigued. You didn't lash out, you don't appear to be frightened or disappointed by the fact that this is it for you. Why did you even go through all of this?"

"I knew that the world needed to change. I knew something wasn't right", Chris explained, while staring at the void.

"But what's the point of putting the whole world at risk to make it right, if you don't even get to see what you did?"

"I knew that there was a big chance that I wouldn't make it alive, and even though I didn't, I'm just glad that at least he has a clean slate…and she gets to live. Just knowing that my mission was accomplished is enough for my soul to rest"

"Compared to the other non-accidental time travelers, your mission sounds like a huge selfless sacrifice for the sake of good."

"It was just something that needed to be done."

"That's admirable. Well, I guess that's all I wanted to hear" the Elder massaged his right temple and with his other hand, retrieved from his pocket what looked to be a pen with a small blue crystal attached to one of its ends, "Normally, an Angel of Death does this, but they're busy righting their morality charts and what not. Anyhow, any last words before this is done? Anything you'd like to say to your family?"

As the crystal began to glow bright blue, Chris pondered for a couple of minutes, but sighed in defeat. "No," he admitted, "I've made my peace". He stared at the glowing tip of the pen and then closed his eyes shut "I'm ready". The blue light began cracking, and Chris waited for minutes that seemed to be hours. "What?" he said, opening his eyes. He found Felix in a pensive pose.

"You know, to me it seems you've had closure, and what you did was as selfless as it was risky and stupid."

"And your point is?"

"Well, I know the Elders would only approve of me recycling you, but in the end, they said it was my call as the time-travel expert…after thinking about it, I came upon some loop holes that we can take advantage of, that is, if you would like to live"

For the first time in years, Chris felt hope, without a hint of dread. "How?" he asked.

"Well, I thought of a way to neutralize your magical baggage, without a full recycle…and I would really like having you on my team"

"You mean…become a full whitelighter?" asked Chris, suspiciously.

"Well, yeah, you've basically got a hang of the basics, you qualify as a good soul, you're ready to move on…and you have plenty of experience. The other Elders will be mad, but they can suck it."

"But…what's the catch?"

"Well, you know the rules: no contacting your friends and family until they've moved on. In your case I figure that you can visit them once they've processed your death and finally make a distinction between you and baby you."

"I don't know…" said the former witchlighter.

"Well, I'll give you a pitch like my advisor did to me when I was alive. My team's pretty casual, the ones on assignment spend ninety percent of their time on Earth in a fixed location…and I can abuse some other magical loopholes to have you keep your with powers."

"Sounds too good to be true"

"Well, the thing is, you'll be overworked and called upon a lot. Basically you'll keep doing what you did with the Charmed Ones, only without the fate of the world hanging from your shoulders. But most importantly, **you** get to live."

"But aren't whitelighters bound to whatever the Elders say?"

"You know what happened with your father. We gave him a life on Earth, along with his mission. While there was interference between both and there was chaos, destruction and whatnot, there's no evidence that having whitelighters among humans can be dangerous…"

"So, basically, it's either going poof, or keep working non-stop?"

"Well, this may sound cheap, but I also offer an unlimited supply of desserts, courtesy of one of my charges. But yeah, what do you say? Would you like to be on my team?"


End file.
